Deusto Journal of Human Rights

Children and future generations’ rights in climate litigation

2025-06-30T16:10:07+02:00

Rights-based climate litigation has become an emerging practice, especially after the historic Urgenda case ruling in 2019. Likewise, the number of lawsuits led by children or young people has multiplied significantly in recent years. There is ample scientific evidence that demonstrates that children and young people, as well as future generations, will suffer to a greater extent the negative consequences of global warming, which places them in a particularly favorable position to argue their claims based on the specific rights of the child. and the principle of intergenerational equity. Therefore, the objective of this work is to examine whether climate cases led by children and young people to date have used arguments based specifically on the rights of the child and future generations, as well as the benefits they may have for this type of litigation.

Received: 30 November 2023
Accepted: 25 October 2024
Articles in Press: 25 February 2025

Gender violence and social justice: the active presence of women in Early Modern judicial life

2025-06-30T16:13:19+02:00

During early modernity, many authors of literary fiction and moralistic treatises explored issues of gender inequality within the Spanish patriarchy, in representation of the state of society at the time. Some pointed towards the harmful consequences of treating women like inherently deficient beings, a classical perspective still perpetuated after the Middle Ages. Others extolled criticisms designed to prolong misogynistic ideologies in Spain. Using these sources as context, as well as archival documents that show cases of victimized women with honor and status ruined by statutory rape, offense, kidnapping, insult, separation, death, bloodshed, violence, aggression and uxoricide, this study analyzes the judicial mechanisms available to both fiancées and wives. In this way, this article explores the various ways through which women progressively learned to demand a more egalitarian application of their rights in order to improve their position in society and ensure their survival.

Received: 18 March 2024
Accepted: 05 November 2024
Artículos en Prensa: 15 April 2025

Capabilities, rights, emotionality and deliberation: keys to a 21st Century Theory of Justice

2025-06-30T16:16:41+02:00

The enunciation of a Theory of Justice has been a task approached during the last centuries from clearly diverse perspectives. From the defence of deliberative democracy to the theory of human capabilities, there has been an attempt to find a path towards just Law. The discrepancies between these positions have been used by the defenders of relativism to reaffirm the non-existence of objective criteria of justice. In this paper we will defend human rights as the meeting point of the most relevant theories of justice and the cornerstone of just law.

Received: 30 October 2024
Accepted: 26 March 2025
Articles in Press: 27 May 2025

Migrants’ human rights in local administrations: an analysis based on the concept of ‘abnormal justice’ and situational strategic planning

2025-06-30T16:18:58+02:00

This paper assembles two theoretical-methodological proposals to analyze local government initiatives on immigration issues: situational strategic planning and the justice analysis model with the category of abnormal justice. The implementation of this analysis is carried out from the systematization and presentation of findings from an investigation carried out in 2023 on local governments in South America that carried out initiatives to protect the rights of migrants, in relation to the implementation of the Global Compact for Migration. Although migration policy is established at the national level, subnational administrations have room to act in an innovative way in matters of migration and human rights, making use of social policies, territorial devices and the political will expressed in institutional practices. Thus, they also manage to mitigate or counteract exclusive requirements or restrictive criteria of national governments.

Received: 23 October 2024
Accepted: 06 February 2025
Articles in Press: 15 April 2025

The asylum maze in Spain: obstacles, segregation and violation of rights

2025-06-30T16:22:39+02:00

The article examines several issues in the asylum procedure in Spain, such as the difficulty in obtaining appointments at police stations, delays in processing paperwork, and the issuance of various types of documentation, questioning the legality of these practices. It also points out that these situations have led to the segregation of asylum seekers based on the stage of the procedure and the type of documentation provided, creating different socio-legal situations: de facto applicants, pending registration, pending formalization, with receipt, with red card, and applicants denied awaiting appeal. This labeling results in unequal access to public services, thereby violating their rights as applicants.

Received: 16 January 2024
Accepted: 18 November 2024
Articles in Press: 27 May 2025

A typology of Roma misrepresentation in contemporary Europe: Marginalization, denizenship, suppression and co-option

2025-06-30T16:24:13+02:00

Building on David Theo Goldberg’s account of the racial state and empirical research on Roma people in Europe, this article delineates various ways in which racism can undermine political representation. To that end it deploys Nancy Fraser’s concepts of “ordinary-political misrepresentation” and “misframing”; the all-affected/subjected principle used to identify those entitled to influence political decisions; and Hannah Pitkin’s four-dimensional conception of representation as substantive, formal, descriptive and symbolic. The article distinguishes racialized forms of misrepresentation rooted in everyday discrimination and educational exclusion (marginalization), the denial of citizenship (denizenship), the negation of subjectively held cultural identities (suppression) and the capture of minority leaders (co-option). It suggests that the first constitutes an “ordinary-political” form of inequality among citizens, whereas the latter three violate the all-affected/subjected principle through the misframing of the legitimate policymaking constituency.

Recived: 22 February 2025
Accepted: 09 June 2025

Reconciling special treatment with the duty to prosecute serious human rights violations in Colombian transitional justice

2025-06-30T16:25:49+02:00

On 24 November 2016, the Colombian government and FARC-EP signed a historic peace agreement, establishing the Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-Recurrence. Central to this system is the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP), which combines restorative justice mechanisms with judicial oversight. This article analyses whether the special treatment measures under the SJP —such as special and alternative sanctions, amnesties, and pardons— comply with Colombia’s obligations under the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to investigate and punish serious human rights violations. It examines the proportionality and enforceability of these measures, highlighting their potential to conflict with international duties if not properly implemented. While the SJP’s approach may facilitate peace, it must ensure that the System’s sanctions align with the gravity of crimes committed. This study underscores the need for Colombia’s transitional justice framework to uphold victims’ rights while adhering to international standards.

Received: 10 May 2024
Accepted: 31 March 2025
Articles in Press: 15 April 2025

The legal rules of the European Union and the United States on artificial intelligence and human rights

2025-06-30T16:26:57+02:00

In the contemporary era, artificial intelligence has become an integral component of our daily lives, permeating various facets of societal functioning with increasing prevalence. Given its pervasive presence in our lives, it is inevitable that AI exerts an influence on us, giving rise to the question of whether there is a nexus between AI and human rights. It is important to note that an algorithm created by an AI machine is devoid of feelings, emotions or prejudices. This may be indicative of a fundamental limitation of artificial intelligence as a tool in itself, constrained by the capabilities and capacities of technology, and thus incapable of perceiving and analyzing in the manner of the human mind. It is imperative that artificial intelligence is designed to be completely impartial and solely analyses the data entrusted to it for processing. Moreover, it should be capable of learning from its mistakes and being free of the emotions associated with human relationships. Conversely, it is as flawed as the human being behind its creation. In the contemporary era, there is an ongoing endeavor on the part of various nations to subjugate the domain of artificial intelligence to the provisions of a legal framework. There are three broad models for regulating AI: the first is based on regulations of the legal sector; the second is based on guidelines of inter-administrative organizations; and the third is based on legal solutions on other similar issues. The United States and the European Union have been at the vanguard of AI regulation, with each adopting different variants. The present publication sets out to compare EU and US legislation in the context of the matrix that served to create it, and to determine whether it regulates human rights. The issue of the rights of ethnic minorities is taken as a test case for this purpose.

Recieved: 16 March 2025
Accepted: 07 June 2025

Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras: The role of victims’ legal representatives in shaping the Inter-American Court’s evidentiary regime

2025-06-30T16:28:02+02:00

The landmark case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras (1988) not only initiated the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights but also established foundational principles of its evidentiary regime. These standards, including the concept of forced disappearances, rules on burden of proof, and use of presumptions and testimonial evidence, continue to shape contemporary caselaw. This paper highlights the overlooked role of the legal representatives of the victims in proposing these evidentiary principles. It comprehensively examines the case, delving into its facts, the Honduran context, the role of legal representatives of the victims, and the impact of Velásquez Rodríguez on the Court’s evidentiary regime and future caselaw.

Received: 08 April 2024
Accepted: 15 January 2025
Articles in Press: 15 April 2025

Mosquera, Stephanía y Macarena Larrea. 2024. Pobreza energética Norte y Sur global. ¿Dos perspectivas diferentes de un mismo problema? Cuadernos Deusto de Derechos Humanos, No. 109. Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto. 142 p.

2025-06-30T16:32:29+02:00

The importance of the universal provision of energy services was not recognized until 1986 in the Brundtland report. As a result, energy poverty, fuel poverty, and transport poverty, among others, have taken more than two decades to be recognized as social challenges for different agents. This Notebook addresses energy poverty in general, in the Global North and the Global South, its conceptualization, central units of measurement and policies to address it. It also shows how all of the above fits into the framework of global warming and the energy transition to detect leading practices and forms of action, as well as possible points in common between some measures and others to understand to what extent it is the same problem, the lack of an adequate level of domestic energy services, but in different time stages and geographical environments.

Articles in Press: 15 April 2025

Arcos, Federico. 2023. Teoría del Derecho. El debate sobre su metodología y función. Barcelona: Atelier

2025-06-30T16:37:17+02:00

The development and evolution of the methodology of the Theory of Law and the Philosophy of Law has been marked by a variety of theoretical postulates. In recent decades, there have been critical considerations about its descriptive, evaluative style, in the face of the need to include sociological perspectives, and more evaluative or argumentative in a moral sense, in order to better explain and delimit Law and legal theory. That is, not only as a research discipline within the area of knowledge of legal sciences, but also because of its implications, especially in teaching or in the training of jurists.

Articles in Press: 15 April 2025